[Fools' Guild 08] - The Parisian Prodigal (19 page)

“Did you see Baudoin there?”

“I don’t remember every single parasite latched to the king, just the larger bloodsuckers. What with the three main contingents bumping into each other, I was bound to miss a few.”

“So if Baudoin was with France in Acre, he might have made an enemy among the Toulousans there,” said Claudia. “One who held a lasting grudge. That’s no more implausible than any other idea you’ve come up with lately.”

“Thank you for your confidence in me,” I said.

“What is a wife for?” she said.

“Would you like me to answer that?” I asked.

“Not in the least,” she said. “Get your foolish face on, then it’s off to the dungeons with you.”

“I’ll trade you for the courtesan and the countess,” I offered.

“No deal,” she said.

I put on my whiteface, grabbed my gear, and left the house.

I
didn’t
bother ditching Sancho’s men this time. I waved as I passed them, whistling as I walked. They glared, then fell into step behind me, not even bothering to conceal themselves.

It probably did not help their irritation that I simply strolled down the Grande Rue to the Château Narbonnais. They stopped in the courtyard while I entered the Palace of Justice, no doubt to alert Sancho to my arrival.

Hue was standing outside Baudoin’s cell when I reached that level. He turned when he heard me coming, and whispered excitedly to Baudoin. The Parisians looked at me expectantly.

“Good morning,” I said.

“It is nearly noon,” said Hue.

“Therefore, still morning,” I said.

“Good morning,” said Baudoin. “Any news?”

“The sun rose again today,” I said.

“Was there ever any doubt that it would?”

“Since you don’t know if you will ever see it again, I thought that it would reassure you,” I said. “I am always happy to see the sun. It means that I have survived yet another night.”

“True enough,” he said. “Thank you for that information.”

“Well, I’ll be off, then,” I said.

“Is that it?” asked Hue. “Nothing but the sun?”

“Had you already told him about it?” I asked Hue.

“No, but-“

“Did you have anything more important to tell him?”

“Anything is more important than that,” said Hue. “Actually, now that it has been put in its proper perspective, nothing is more important than that,” said Baudoin. “Thank you, Fool.”

“Now that I think of it, I do have a question for you,” I said.

“Finally,” sighed Hue.

“What is it?” asked Baudoin.

“Ever been to Acre?”

“Acre?” he repeated, puzzled. “No.”

“Did you go on crusade with Phillippe Auguste? Or make a pilgrimage Beyond-the-Sea?”

“No and no again,” said Baudoin. “I was never of a crusading mind. I liked Paris, especially when my cousin was away.”

“Why then?”

“I had little to justify my existence other than our kinship,” he said. “I received whatever stipend he was willing to give because of my mother, but accompanied by his constant reproaches over my draining his vast resources.”

“Can’t really blame him,” I said. “And you came to Toulouse because that well had run dry.”

“Yes,” he said. “My mother died many years ago, and the time had come for Phillippe and I to part ways. A leech is less amusing at forty than he is at twenty.”

“That’s right, you’re forty,” I said. “Quite a lengthy run of uselessness. I almost admire your tenacity.”

“I should have been a jester,” he grinned.

“Oh, but that’s hard work,” I reminded him. “How about you, Hue? Ever been to Acre?”

“Me? Why me?” asked Hue.

“It came up in conversation,” I said. “Have you?”

“No,” he said. “I was not even in Paris then.”

“Really? When did you arrive?”

“When was it, around ’97?” Hue asked Baudoin, counting on his fingers.

“You have been in my employ for nine years,” said Baudoin. “That would make it ’96.”

“Where were you before?” I asked.

“I had worked as a servant for a great house in Rouen,” said Hue. “But my master died, so I went to Paris to seek my fortune.”

“Did you ever find it?” I asked him.

“I found this gentleman,” he said. “I have served him faithfully ever since.”

“Very well,” I said. “That completes my questions.”

“Do our answers give you any help?” asked Baudoin. “They shot down a theory, and that saves me the effort of looking into it,” I said. “Good day to you. May you live to see another sunrise.”

“And you, friend Fool,” he replied.

I left them, thinking.

Baudoin was a worthless man who had led an unimposing life. A pleasant man, to be sure, and that must have served him well in maintaining his royally subsidized existence. His mother must have been a good woman to have gained her son such lengthy protection.

I wondered if her memory would still help him here? Raimon would still have been just a child when she left. Baudoin, if legitimate, would be his only surviving sibling at this point. There had been two others, but…

What would a full brother of Toulouse gain? What was he entitled to when there were no others competing with him? Was there a county designated for his use? A castle? An army?

I was thinking too narrowly in my pursuit, I realized. This was not simply a matter of family squabbling. The squabbling family in this case was made up of well-connected nobles. Wars had risen and thrones had toppled over lesser matters than these.

Let’s say that Baudoin’s return would place him in a position of command, whether he was suited to it or not. He might gain instant access to Raimon’s innermost circle, right there with Comminges, something that might take others a lifetime to attain. And once there, he might present one more obstacle between them and Raimon.

In that light, the Count of Foix may very well have had good reason to destroy Baudoin before he got that far.

I was still chewing on that thought when I ascended into the light of the courtyard. Sancho was waiting for me, my two trackers flanking him.

“I am waiting for you to do something subtle,” he said.

“I have been doing subtle things all along. Did you not notice?”

“What were you doing down there?”

“Visiting a prisoner.”

“I thought you usually visit the prisoners on Tuesdays.”

“Today isn’t Tuesday?”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Sometimes, I visit them on Thursdays. Especially when I think that they are Tuesdays. Tomorrow’s Friday?”

“Right.”

“Then I haven’t missed Mass. Thank you for bringing me up to date. Good day to you, whichever it is.”

“Not yet,” said Sancho sternly. “You see these two fellows with me?”

“I have been seeing nothing but those two fellows lately.”

“They are on permanent Tan Pierre detail,” he said.

“Punishment for losing you the other day. They lost a man wearing whiteface and motley in broad daylight, can you imagine that?”

“Dear me, I had no idea I was lost,” I said. “I certainly hope that I turn up soon. I am quite fond of me, you know.”

“I am ordering them to dog your every footstep until you go to sleep tonight.”

“Will they be in the bedroom with me? That would douse the romance. Perhaps they could stay in the children’s room and tell Portia a story. She likes stories.”

“Or you could simply tell me what the hell it is you’re doing.”

“Tell you what, friend Sancho,” I said. “I’ll make a wager with you. I will wager that I can lose your hounds within a half—no, a quarter of a mile of the Porte Narbonnaise, and come back to you in this courtyard without them.”

“What are the stakes?” he said, looking interested.

“The usual,” I said. “I lose, I talk. I win, then you buy the next drink.”

He turned to his men. “Think you can avoid fouling this up?” he asked them.

“We’ll be so hot on his tail that he’ll feel our breath on the back of his neck,” spat one.

“That almost sounds pleasurable,” I sighed, batting my eyes at him. “Well, then. Let’s be off.”

I strolled out of the compound and through the gates.

A few minutes later, I rejoined Sancho, who was still standing there.

“Where are my men?” he asked wearily.

“Somewhere in the Comminges quarter,” I said.

“How did you do it?”

“Cloak, hay wain, rain barrel, ladder, rooftop,” I said. “There were a few other steps. It happened so fast, I can barely remember it myself. Nearly dried my eyeballs out in the whirlwind. Now, about that drink …”

The two men came dashing into the courtyard, out of breath. They looked at me in chagrin.

“Go guard something that isn’t moving,” ordered Sancho. “Try not to lose it.”

They trudged off.

“Don’t get too smug about this,” warned Sancho.

“I shall only be the right amount of smug,” I said. “Someday, you will run into someone who will beat you at one of these contests.”

“I already have,” I said.

“What did you lose?”

“I married her.”

“That was her loss,” snorted Sancho. “Let’s get that drink.” He took me to the same tavern as the last time we had shared a drink. The day of La Rossa’s death, I thought gloomily.

“The murdered courtesan,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” asked Sancho, returning with a pitcher of ale and two cups.

“An unfinished ballad about a finished lady,” I said.

“La Rossa? Why are you still going on about her?” he asked. “She’s done for, and the man who did for her is now in a dungeon with only fools for company.”

“Yet I cannot let it go,” I said. “I don’t think Baudoin killed her.”

“He was lying in bed next to her fresh corpse, his knife in her breast,” said Sancho.

“In a house full of whores, any one of whom could have crept in there and killed her while they slept,” I said. “Which makes more sense than Baudoin doing it.”

“Why?”

“Because a man would not leave a city where he had lived for forty years to risk his comfort on slight expectations of welcome, only to throw it all away on a useless murder.”

“This man did,” insisted Sancho stubbornly. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why are you so interested in all of this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But why is the Count of Foix so interested in my interest?”

“The Count of Foix?”

“Come off it, Sancho,” I said impatiently. “That’s why you’ve been following me, isn’t it?”

“The Count of Toulouse ordered it,” he said.

“No, he didn’t,” I replied. “The Count of Toulouse would be as curious as I am to know what happened to La Rossa, especially if Baudoin turns out truly to be his brother. No, Sancho, the Count of Foix is the one making you interfere with my investigation. You are merely one more line of attack.”

“Why would I do anything for him?” scoffed Sancho.

“He bought up your gambling debts, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sancho, dropping his voice down.

“Sancho, I heard this from Higini himself,” I said. “The Count of Foix owns you.”

“He does not!” Sancho shouted. Then he brought his voice back down. “How the hell did you get Higini to tell you that?”

“I won the information from him at dice.”

“You conquered Higini? How? Please, tell me the secret,” begged Sancho.

“We both used loaded dice,” I said. “It made the bet fair again.”

“Hah!” he said. “Beat him at his own game. I must remember that.”

“Sancho, you are evading the point,” I said. “The Count of Foix is squeezing my wife and me so that we are constrained to do his bidding. If I am going to get us out from under his thumb, I will need your help. And I can help you do the same. We can work together.”

“Maybe, maybe,” he said, looking around to make sure no one was in earshot of the conversation. “Let’s say I agree. What is it that you are looking for?”

“A reason the Count of Foix would fear Baudoin so much that he would set him up for La Rossa’s murder.”

“There is none,” said Sancho. “He didn’t do that.”

“How do you know? I think Baudoin posed a threat to him.”

“He may have,” said Sancho. “But not to the point that Foix would have La Rossa killed to eliminate him.”

“Why not?”

“Because La Rossa was too important to him,” said Sancho.

“As a spy?”

“As an earner,” explained Sancho.

I stared at him in confusion.

“You don’t know?” said Sancho, seeing it. “You honestly don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That bordel and every woman in it pay tribute to the Count of Foix,” said Sancho. “He owns the whorehouse.”

W
hy would
the Count of Foix own a bordel?” I asked.

“Why does anyone own any business?” returned Sancho. “To make money.”

“But a nobleman—“

“Still needs money,” said Sancho. “Lots of it, in fact. It takes much more to sustain the life of a nobleman than a humble soldier like myself. Look around the city and you’ll find lots of decaying gentry who can’t even keep a decent house, much less one that can entertain the Count of Toulouse. And when you are paying off the Church and the viguier to look the other way while your wife practices her cute little heresies, then that will cost you a few pennies by itself.”

“How much does he pay for that?” I asked.

“The bishop came cheap, as you might have guessed, but the abbey didn’t,” said Sancho. “The viguier, on the other hand, is an old friend of his, so he got a bargain rate, but there are all the bailes to think about. And Foix is not the most lucrative county around, so it’s no surprise that the count had to cast about for some profitable enterprises.”

“He’s a whoremonger,” I said, shaking my head in amazement.

“Well, there’s worse things,” said Sancho. “Although he’s probably done a few of those as well. And to be charitable, he treats the ladies very well compared to some of the other places in town. He should. He was running through all his money there before he realized that he could buy the whole thing at once instead of with daily installments. So he did. The Abbess is just a front.”

“Although the front is spectacular,” I said. “When did Foix make this investment?”

“You remember when—no, you weren’t here then. But you know the story about him being held prisoner a few years back?”

“I did. His wife and the Duke of Comminges negotiated his return.”

“Right. So, anyhow, there’s the Count of Foix imprisoned for six months or more, and you can imagine what that would do to a man of his appetites.”

“They didn’t feed him?”

“They fed him a normal man’s diet, which nearly starved him to death. And they don’t bring you women in places like that.”

“He must have gone mad.”

“Oh, that barely covers half of it.” Sancho grinned. “He emerged from captivity half his girth and randy as hell. Once he showed up in Toulouse, there was not a table or a bed that was safe from his hungers, both belly and prick. Bernard and the viguier finally had to take him aside and steer him toward the Abbess’s bordel because he was embarrassing them and Raimon. And it was love at first sight.”

“He fell in love with an entire bordel?”

“Rumor has it that he went through every woman in the place the first day. Then he bought the place out and kept it exclusively his for a week. They say when it reopened for business, none of the ladies could do more than lie in bed and wave weakly at their customers.”

“Nonsense,” I scoffed. “He paid them to spread his legend.”

“Probably,” agreed Sancho. “But it makes for a good story. Once word of his prodigious skills in lovemaking got around, more of the town women took an interest. Made his pursuits more successful. And, of course, it brought word of the bordel to the men who came out of curiosity.”

“Which made things lucrative all around,” I said. “Whom did he buy it from?”

“Don’t know.”

“Might be worth finding out. That night we went there with the Parisians?”

“What about it?”

“You were working for Foix then.”

“I was with Baudoin on Raimon’s orders,” he said. “But because of Foix, I will steer anyone who’s interested to that bordel.”

“You get a commission?”

“It is the best one in town,” he said indignantly. “And, yes, I have debts, as you have said. It helps pay them down.”

“And that’s all that was going on,” I muttered. “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Sancho, I have thought you capable of great evil in the past few days, but all you turned out to be was a gambler and a panderer. Forgive me.”

“I suppose that counts as an apology,” he said.

“How about I buy the next drink?”

“That’s more like it,” he said, holding out his hand. “That’s two theories gone in a day,” I sighed, shaking it. “What was the other one?”

“I am not going to embarrass myself further by wild speculations,” I said.

“Turning over a new leaf, are we?” snorted Sancho. “The minute your speculations stop is when I check your heart to see if it still beats.”

“Sometimes I’m right,” I said petulantly as the tavern maid came with a new pitcher.

“You’re buying this round, so I agree with you,” said Sancho.

“How much would it take to buy your way out of the Count of Foix’s control?” I asked.

“More than a year’s wages,” he said.

“I could lend—“

“Shove your loan,” he said. “Then I would owe you.”

“I wouldn’t make you do anything for it,” I said.

“I’m just tired of shuffling from one master to another,” he said. “I am going to do what I have to do to pay it back, throw my dice in the Garonne, earn my pension, and buy one of the Abbess’s castoffs when she no longer has any use for her.”

“One of the better retirement plans I have ever heard,” I laughed, pouring us another round and raising my cup in salute. “To your future bride. May she still have some energy left.”

“I figure cutting back to one man a day will be like a vacation for her,” said Sancho.

“Which one do you have in mind?”

“La Navarra,” he confessed.

“Why her?”

“She frightens me the most.”

“Why is that your principal consideration?”

“I need to be kept on the straight and narrow,” he said.

“She is wide and curvaceous,” I pointed out.

“But with a short temper and long nails,” he said dreamily.

I poured another cup and held it up. “To your taloned, talented, temperamental temptress,” I said.

“You will perform at our wedding,” he said, knocking his cup against mine.”But not gratis,” I said. “I have done too many free performances lately.”

We drank and refilled our cups once more.

“To making our fortunes,” he said.

“Amen.”

We drank again.

“Our cups are empty,” I observed.

“And so is the pitcher,” he said, peering into it. “If the pitchers are empy, then we must be full. I have to get back to my post.”

He sagged to the floor. I put my hands under his arms and hauled him to his feet.

“How did you manage to outdrink me?” he mumbled as I helped him walk out the tavern.

“I’m taller,” I said.

“I should have Been taller,” he said, staring intently at something no one else could see.

I managed to get him back to his quarters. By the time we arrived, I was exhausted and he was comatose. He collapsed at the base of his cot. I looked at him, wondering if it was worth the effort getting him in. I decided that it was not.

I wandered over to the Grande Chambre, which was empty, then up to the count’s office. Raimon was not there. Peire Roger, the viguier, was sorting out some documents and making meticulous entries in a ledger book.

“Good morning, senhor,” I said.

“Good afternoon, Fool,” he replied.

I looked out the window. “Sure enough,” I said. “Is the count about?”

“Off riding with the countess,” he said.

“By which you mean riding horses,” I said.

“Oc, I do,” he said. “None of your smutty insinuations, thank you very much.”

“I am happy to hear that they are enjoying each other’s company in any way, shape, or form,” I said. “It’s a lovely day to ride. Do you ride, senhor?”

“I am at an age where things that once gave me pleasure now cause me pain,” he said, never taking his eyes from the ledger. “I used to sit a horse with the best of them, fully armored with a lance in one hand and a sword in the other.”

“I always felt sorry for the poor horses, carrying all that weight,” I said. “Bad enough wearing your own armor, but carrying another’s on top of it.”

“A motley fool like yourself could get by riding a donkey, I suppose.”

“I have had one on occasion,” I said. “An ass with his ass on an ass, I used to say. Always good for a laugh in the small towns.”

“Do you have any particular business here?”

“None here, none anywhere else,” I said cheerfully. “Do I detect within you a desire to have me leave?”

“I do not wish to offend,” said Peire Roger. “I do have work to do.”

“As do I,” I said. “I am doing it now. This is me working.”

“Work somewhere else, then,” he said.

“As you wish, senhor,” I said, bowing.

He had not looked up once during the conversation. Oh, well. I turned to leave; then a thought struck me.

“Senhor?”

“What is it, Fool?”

“You were on the last crusade, were you not? I mean, the real crusade, the one to Beyond-the-Sea, not the farce that is playing out in Constantinople.”

“I was there,” he said shortly. “I do not like to visit those memories.”

“I am not asking about them,” I said quickly. “I was just wondering, did you know the Count of Foix back then?”

“We served together the entire time,” he replied. “We have been friends ever since.”

“And did you know the French king?”

“I was not part of his inner circle,” he said. “I was not so well-established as you see me now. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was wondering if you ever heard about Count Raimon’s last brother back then. Did you know nothing of Baudoin?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Not by name, not by title, not by existence.”

“Yet you accepted the possibility of his legitimacy upon his arrival here without question.”

“Possibilities are a wise man’s playthings,” he said.

“I like that,” I said. “May I steal it?”

“Be my guest.”

“Do you actually think that Baudoin is the real brother?” He looked directly at me for the first time. “I think that he is a possibility,” he said. “No more, no less.”

“What happens if the possibility turns out to be a reality?”

“Why do you care?”

“I have been his tutor, his helper, his confidante,” I said. “If he takes his place at the count’s right hand, then my fortunes will increase with his.”

“You are already the count’s favorite. What more could you want?”

“To add to my own possibilities,” I said. “Sometimes fools fall out of favor.”

“I cannot imagine why,” he said, turning back to his ledger. I watched him for a while.

“That was a cue for you to leave,” he said at last. “Ohhhh.”

I was stealing from Helga now, I thought. It had come to that.

I went back to the Palace of Justice and descended to the lower dungeons. Hue was gone. Baudoin, unsurprisingly, was right where I left him.

“Greetings, Fool,” he said. “How goes the sun?”

“Past its zenith, on its way to the western horizon,” I said. “Good,” he said. “I would fear to hear otherwise.”

“Tell me about your mother,” I said.

“My mother? What does she have to do with anything?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But, from all I can determine after several days of investigation, you pose no threat to anyone.”

“How disappointing,” he sighed. “One likes to think one is at least slightly dangerous.”

“But you are not. I am wondering if this could be some long-held grudge against your mother.”

“Her sins visited upon me? Sounds implausible.”

“I am running out of ideas,” I confessed. “Paris. Your mother. The King of France. How did he treat her when she came back from Toulouse?”

“I cannot say how she was first received,” he said. “My earliest memories are of playing in the palace courtyard.”

“Did she live with the king?”

“He was her brother. He provided for her.”

“Sumptuously?”

“We did not live extravagantly by royal standards,” he said. “She only had four servants to call her own. I had a nanny as well.”

“It must have been a struggle for her to get by on so little,” I said.

“That was meant to be sarcastic, wasn’t it?” he said cheerfully. “Good. Nothing a condemned man likes better than being told by a fool that he should have appreciated his good fortune at the time. Well, we did appreciate it. But we were treated as charity cases at the court, I will tell you that. My mother, the woman who could not keep a husband even after bearing four of his children, who could not do her duty to France by hanging on to the leash of Toulouse. We may have been in the lap of luxury, but we were outcasts in the palace.”

“Poor you. Did she have any contact with Toulouse after she came to Paris? Any conversation with embassies or casual visitors?”

“Not that I noticed,” he said, thinking. “She was bitter and angry about being discarded like that. She never wanted to have anything to do with Toulouse or its inhabitants ever again.”

“And you? What did she tell you?”

“That I was nephew to the King of France and might someday take the throne myself.”

“That must have raised your hopes,” I said.

“Well, she did mention that I was fourth in line at that point,” he said. “That I had two brothers and a sister in a mythical place in the south, who dwelled in a castle with an evil man whom she prayed every day would die a quick but painful death.”

“That would be the bitterness and anger you mentioned,” I said. “Understandable under the circumstances.”

“She took to spirituality more and more as I got older,” he said. “Brought in priests, nuns, mystics, not a few who claimed to be sorcerers who could speed up the death of her husband. But he lived on a good long time.”

“He was a bull, from what I observed,” I said. “I saw him once. It was toward the end of his life, but you could see—“ Baudoin was looking at me strangely, his eyes glistening.

“Please, go on,” he said. “You are the first person ever to tell me about my father other than my mother.”

“I never knew him to speak to, senhor,” I said. “It was only that one time while I was passing through with an earlier master.”

“Do I resemble him?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s difficult to say after so many years,” I said. “Maybe in the set of your mouth. You resemble your brother in that.”

“You called him my brother,” he said. “Thank you for accepting that.”